ricardienne | (no subject)

ad diem V Kalends October

Lesson today. We spent the first 15 minutes or so talking about religion. Sparked by the fact that the girl before me has a Yiddish last name. She's half-Jewish, Diane is half-Jewish, I'm half-Jewish. The result: I end up spilling all of my "cultural-religious identity insecurities" to someone whom I a) am scared of and b) barely know. In other words, the usual.

I have this phobia of starting pieces. I always screw up the opening measure. No matter how well I know it, I can't seem to play well. She says, "Okay, let's hear it." I sit there for a couple seconds, then realize that this means I need to start. I get ready. I realize that I should have already started, that only a moron would wait this long before starting, that I need to start NOW. I screw it up.

I should be working on my Beowulf essay. Or my St. Augustine essay. But mainly the Beowulf because a) that one needs more work b) the St. Augustine is due this Friday, which means that I will get it done one way or the other and c) Morgon borrowed my copy of Confessions which will make the St. Augustine kind of tricky.

I need to figure ot why the fact that the women in Beowulf think about the future where the men tend to think only about the present, the big picture where the men think about the individual, is important. How would the poem be less if this were not the case?

Well, you could say that having the women do this allows the poet to keep the idea of the future and future concerns present, without letting it dilute the heroism, courage, and fatalism of the men. I mean, if Beowulf were actually thinking about the long-term consequences of his fighting the dragon, the heroics of it would lesson. So you weigh all the options and decide that a dragon now is worse than Swedes later. That isn't as impressive as simply grabbing your sword and 11 thanes and going off to chase the thing. The men are men of action. Men of doing. They don't think. Actually, no, that is a gross overstatement. They do think. Beowulf thinks about what he can do for his people be bequeathing him the great treasure of the dragon. But it isn't the same. That's about what his single action will or won't do now. In the immediate present-future. What Hygd and Wealtheow think about is what will happen to their children in the distant future.

But what about Wiglaf? He has that one line: "oft when one man follows his will, many are hurt." He's the one who actually voices doubt as to whether Beowulf made the right decision. "The Swedes will invade. The Franks will invade. We will be screwed in a major way now that Beowulf is gone." He's clearly thinking about the future. "None of us could persuade him to let the dragon lie." He obviously tried to do something about it. But this isn't the same. Again, it's still focused on the actions of one person: of Beowulf. What will Beowulf do to protect his people? How will Beowulf's actions play out in the ship-pasture of international relations? The women think about building alliances, about building ties, about securing the future. The men just think about hanging on, about beating back the darkness for as long as they can.

The women think about building alliances, about building ties, about securing the future. The men just think about hanging on, about beating back the darkness for as long as they can. I think that's important. The men are heroic. They are fighting the losing fight, defiant and courageous to the end. The women aren't. The "weaker sex," perhaps, the non-fighting one, definitely. From a practical standpoint, they can't fight. As in, physically do not know how and lack weapons. They can't go out in a glorious death, falling with their ring-giver in a courageous last stand. They just get captured, raped, made into slaves. Yeah, they'd better worry about keeping the peace.

The poem, Lydia. Think about the poem. If the men expressed these things, it would weaken them. If the heroes worried about the future, they'd be less determined, less reckless, less heroic. So why put it in at all? Why have Wealtheow wandering around making speeches about being nice to one another and handing out mead? Why do we need to know about these things?

It is hope? No, I really don't think so. Is it realism? 9th century-style gritty realism? Perhaps, but I'm not sure that will cut is as far as Prof. Lambert's "So what?" is concerned. Is it contrast? When Beowulf's heroics are contrasted with this careful concern and worrying, do they seem bigger? Even more daring? It really isn't in the poem enough for that.

No. Come on. It adds depth. It's about the digressions, about the atmosphere. Why is Beowulf's death so terrible after all? Because now his people will be attacked and enslaved, depredated and despoiled, etc. and etc. It's about having that undercurrent of instability, that life is on the edge, that behind the fighting and glory, the good life is barely hanging on. That everything depends on whether Wealtheow can get Beowulf to agree to help out her son in Hrothgar dies. That That's what Heorot hangs on. Sure, Beowulf is handy when it comes to defending the place, sure the great King Hrothgar has beaten back the Danes' enemies. But remember the lines from the poem:

The hall towered,
its gables wide and high and awaiting
a barbarous burning. That doom abided,
but in time it would come: the killer instinct
unleashed among in-laws, the blood-lust rampant.

Never mind Grendel: it's all going to end soon anyway. That's the fatalism. And by showing the women trying to combat that -- not the monsters but the real menaces to society -- the poet keeps it up as a reminder. It needs to be there, but the men can't do it. They have to worry about the fighting, they have to be strong and stern and resolutely glorious in the face of monsters. But if the women weren't scurrying about in the background, grief-stricken over the deaths of their sons and husbands, desperately trying to keep the peace, we might forget about it.